Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortium (SFAC) — Society of the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare for Agri-business, FPOs, e-NAM & Venture Capital Assistance

The Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortium (SFAC) is an autonomous society of the Government of India — registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 in January 1994by the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (now the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, and headquartered at the NCUI Auditorium Building, August Kranti Marg, New Delhi. Unlike NABARD (a statutory development bank under the NABARD Act, 1981) or NCDC (a statutory corporation under the NCDC Act, 1962), SFAC is a registered society — a lighter legal form deliberately chosen to give it the flexibility of promoting agri-business enterprises, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), matching-equity grants for Farmer Producer Companies, venture-capital assistance and market linkages without the balance-sheet weight of a bank. For the broader map of farmer-welfare programmes, see our India government schemes for farmers reference.

Origin and legal basis

SFAC was set up on the recommendation of the Ministry of Agriculture in the early 1990s, at a time when small- and marginal-farmer agri-business was seen as needing dedicated institutional promotion beyond the traditional refinance and extension architecture. The society was formally registered in January 1994under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 by the then Department of Agriculture & Cooperation. It was constituted as a consortium — with the Government of India, national agri-institutions, cooperatives and financial institutions among its founding members — precisely to catalyse convergence between the ministry, the banking system and the agri-value-chain participants.

Over the three decades since its registration, SFAC's operational role has expanded in three distinct waves. The first wave (1994 through the mid-2000s) focused on the Venture Capital Assistance and Project Development Facility windows for bridging the promoter-contribution gap on bankable agri-business projects. The second wave (2011 onwards) focused on Farmer Producer Company promotion — culminating in the SFAC-led Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies of January 2014. The third wave (2016 onwards) added the flagship role of lead implementing agency for e-NAM and, from 2020, one of the three lead implementing agencies for the Central Sector Scheme for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs, alongside NABARD and NCDC.

Mandate at a glance

• Promote agri-business enterprises — helping bankable agri-business ideas move from concept to sanctioned project through the Project Development Facility (DPRs and feasibility) and Venture Capital Assistance (interest-free loan bridging the promoter-contribution shortfall).
• Promote Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) — including formation, registration as Producer Companies under the Companies Act, 2013, CBBO handholding under the 10,000 FPO scheme, and matching-equity and credit-guarantee support for eligible FPCs.
• Operate the e-NAM platformas the lead implementing agency on behalf of DA&FW — integrating APMC mandis into a single national electronic market for agricultural commodities.
• Enable market linkages for FPOs and small farmers with processors, exporters, retail chains and institutional buyers, complementing APEDA on the export side.
• Coordinate with State SFACs as state-level counterparts on FPO promotion, equity-grant stacking and state-level agri-business incubation.

Flagship programmes operated by SFAC

Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies (2014)

Launched by SFAC in January 2014, the Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) is SFAC's flagship capitalisation instrument for newly formed Producer Companies. It has two parallel windows.

Equity Grant window: SFAC provides a matching equity grant equal to the equity contribution made by the shareholder farmers of an eligible FPC, capped at ₹15 lakh per FPC. The grant is credited pro-rata to individual shareholder accounts, so it reinforces both the balance-sheet equity of the FPC (for subsequent bank borrowing) and the individual member's shareholding (aligning member incentives with FPC performance). Release is milestone-linked — the FPC must satisfy governance, audit and turnover conditions specified in the scheme guidelines.

Credit Guarantee window: SFAC provides collateral-free credit guarantee cover on loans up to ₹2 crore extended by eligible lending institutions (scheduled commercial banks, cooperative banks, NABARD-eligible NBFCs) to FPCs. The guarantee cover percentage is calibrated by ticket size and legal form, and lets a newly-formed FPC lever a meaningful working-capital or small fixed-asset line without pledging member assets. The 2020 Central Sector Scheme for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs later carried this template into a parallel NABSanrakshan-operated Credit Guarantee Fund for FPOs (CGFFPO), so an FPO today can choose the SFAC or NABSanrakshan window at loan-appraisal stage.

Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Scheme

The Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Schemeis SFAC's interest-free soft-loan windowfor agri-business projects. It bridges the shortfall between the promoter's contribution and the term loan sanctioned by an eligible bank or financial institution against a bankable Detailed Project Report (DPR). Eligible promoters include Farmer Producer Companies and cooperatives, individual farmers, agri-entrepreneurs, agri-graduates, self-help groups and farmer-interest groups.

The venture-capital assistance amount is calibrated as thelowerof 26% of the promoter's equity, 40% of the project shortfall or a project-value-linked ceiling notified in the scheme guidelines. Disbursement follows the term-loan sanction from the partner bank; repayment is scheduled after a moratorium synchronised with the project's cash-flow ramp-up, and is interest-free. VCA typically flows into cold-chain projects, primary processing, contract-farming aggregators, dairy value-addition, aromatic-plant processing, seed production, greenhouse cultivation, mushroom units, apiculture and other bankable agri-business projects with a promoter constraint on equity.

Project Development Facility (PDF)

The Project Development Facility (PDF)is SFAC's grant-based support for preparing Detailed Project Reports (DPRs), feasibility studies and bankable business plans for agri-business projects. It funds professional DPR consultants engaged by eligible promoters — FPCs, cooperatives, self-help groups, agri-entrepreneurs, farmer-interest groups and eligible NGOs — to convert an agri-business idea into a technically, financially and commercially rigorous document acceptable to a lending bank. The PDF-funded DPR is often the prerequisite for subsequent VCA support, NABARD / NCDC / bank term-loan sanction, and convergence with AIF and PMFME. In many agri-business proposals, the missing first-mile is precisely the bankable DPR — PDF exists to close that gap.

e-NAM — National Agriculture Market

e-NAM— the electronic National Agriculture Market — is SFAC's flagship digital platform. Launched by the Prime Minister on 14 April 2016, e-NAM is a pan-India electronic trading portal that networks existing APMC mandis into a single online market for agricultural commodities. SFAC is the lead implementing agencyfor e-NAM on behalf of DA&FW, and operates the e-NAM Strategic Business Unit — technical delivery, integration with state APMCs, farmer / FPO / trader / commission-agent onboarding, assaying-lab standardisation, integration with WDRA on electronic Negotiable Warehouse Receipt (eNWR) based trading and the more recent Platform of Platforms (PoP) initiative that integrates approved private agri-market platforms with e-NAM.

As per enam.gov.in and PIB releases, e-NAM today integrates more than 1,389 mandis across 23 states and 4 Union Territories, with over 1.78 crore registered farmers, ~2.5 lakh traders holding the unified e-NAM licence, ~2,600 FPOs onboarded for entity-level and lot-trading-from-premises access, and more than 220 notified commodities across cereals, pulses, oilseeds, spices, fruits and vegetables, fibres and plantation crops.

Central Sector Scheme for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs (2020)

SFAC is one of the three lead implementing agencies for the Central Sector Scheme for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs — approved by the Union Cabinet on 19 February 2020 with a ₹6,865 crore outlay — alongside NABARD and NCDC. Additional implementing agencies include NAFED, NDDB, TRIFED, NCDFI, state cooperative federations and watershed-development departments. Within the scheme, SFAC empanels Cluster Based Business Organizations (CBBOs) for its allocated clusters, hand holds each FPO through registration, Detailed Business Plan preparation, opening of bank accounts, governance and CEO / board training, member training, e-NAM onboarding and market linkage, credit-guarantee application, MIS reporting and the five-year sustainability transition. FPOs registered as Producer Companies typically pair the 10,000 FPO scheme management-cost support with the SFAC matching Equity Grant under the 2014 scheme, and with credit-guarantee cover under either SFAC or NABSanrakshan CGFFPO.

Governance and organisation

SFAC is governed by a Board of Managementconstituted under its Memorandum of Association and Rules & Regulations. The Board is chaired by the Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare(or a nominee), with the Secretary of DA&FW typically as Vice-Chair. The Board includes representatives of concerned central ministries and departments (Finance, Cooperation, Commerce, Food Processing Industries, DAHD), NABARD, national agri-institutions, cooperative federations, state governments and eminent agri-economists / agri-business experts. Executive authority is exercised by the Managing Director (MD), appointed by the Government of India, who is the Chief Executive of the Society and heads the professional secretariat at the SFAC headquarters in New Delhi. Programme delivery is organised across specialised business units — the e-NAM SBU, the FPO Cell (equity grant, credit guarantee and CBBO handholding), the Agri-business Cell (VCA and PDF) and administration & finance.

State SFACs

Several states have set up their own State Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortia (State SFACs) on the SFAC model, as autonomous societies of the respective state agriculture / horticulture / cooperation department. State SFACs typically operate as extended arms of the state department — empanelling CBBOs for the 10,000 FPO scheme in the state, running state agri-business incubators, coordinating state-level agri-startup competitions, administering state producer-company equity-grant windows that stack with the central SFAC 2014 scheme, delivering state-funded interest-subvention or capital-subsidy top-ups for FPO post-harvest projects, and coordinating between the state APMC and SFAC on e-NAM implementation. State SFACs also provide the local last-mile for VCA and PDF applications from state promoters. Not every state has an active State SFAC; states without one route FPO promotion through NABARD, NCDC or a designated state cooperative federation.

How to apply — practical routes

1. For a Producer Company promoter seeking the SFAC Equity Grant: ensure the FPC is duly registered as a Producer Company under the Companies Act, 2013 (Section 378A onwards) with the minimum shareholder membership required by the scheme guidelines, has audited accounts for the preceding operational year(s), and has a Detailed Business Plan and functional bank account. Apply through the SFAC-empanelled CBBO handholding the cluster, or directly to SFAC on sfacindia.com under the Equity Grant module. Grant is released to individual shareholder accounts pro-rata to member share capital, up to the ₹15 lakh per-FPC cap.
2. For a Producer Company seeking Credit Guarantee cover on a bank loan: the loan application is filed by the FPC with an eligible lending institution; on sanction, the lending institution files the credit-guarantee application with SFAC (or with NABSanrakshan under CGFFPO for 10,000 FPO scheme clusters). The FPC does not apply directly for the guarantee.
3. For an agri-business promoter seeking PDF or VCA support: submit the project concept with promoter background, promoter contribution capability and expected bank-loan requirement to SFAC. On PDF sanction, a professional consultant is engaged to prepare the DPR; on DPR completion and bank term-loan sanction, the VCA application is filed with SFAC for the interest-free bridge component.
4. For onboarding an FPO onto e-NAM: registration is via the local APMC mandi office or online at enam.gov.in with FPO incorporation details, bank account, board resolution and KYC of authorised signatories. See our e-NAM guide for the detailed process flow, lot-trading-from-premises module and eNWR warehouse-based trading.

Recent numbers and progress

As per SFAC annual reports and PIB releases, cumulative equity grants released under the 2014 Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for FPCs have benefitted several thousand Farmer Producer Companies. On the 10,000 FPO scheme, SFAC — together with NABARD and NCDC — has empanelled more than 800 CBBOs since 2020 and is hand-holding several thousand FPO clusters through their five-year formation-to-sustainability arc. On e-NAM, integration has grown from the initial 21 mandis at launch in April 2016 to more than 1,389 mandis across 23 states and 4 Union Territories, with a registered user base of over 1.78 crore farmers, ~2.5 lakh traders and ~2,600 FPOs, and more than 220 notified commodities. All figures are indicative and are refreshed periodically on sfacindia.com, enam.gov.in and in DA&FW / PIB releases.

Convergence with the wider farmer-welfare portfolio

SFAC rarely stands alone — its instruments are designed to converge with several other Government of India programmes and apex agencies to deliver end-to-end capital, capacity and market access to an FPO or an agri-business promoter:

• 10,000 FPO scheme: SFAC is one of the three lead implementing agencies with NABARD and NCDC. SFAC-cluster FPOs stack the scheme's management-cost support with the SFAC 2014 Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee.
• e-NAM: SFAC is the lead implementing agency for the electronic National Agriculture Market — the flagship digital marketplace for APMC mandi trade.
• Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF): 3% interest subvention on loans up to ₹2 crore per project for post-harvest and community farming assets — the natural next-mile after an SFAC-supported FPC secures its equity grant and credit guarantee cover.
• PMFME: 35% credit-linked back-end subsidy for micro food-processing units; SFAC-cluster FPOs plug into PMFME on the One District One Product (ODOP) anchor.
• NABARD and NCDC: sister apex agencies that operate parallel refinance, term-loan and credit-guarantee windows; SFAC coordinates cluster allocation and CBBO empanelment with both under the 10,000 FPO scheme.
• APEDA: the export regulator and promotion body under the Ministry of Commerce — SFAC-supported FPOs producing export-grade horticulture, spices, cereals or processed products plug into APEDA schemes for grading, packaging, common infrastructure and market development.
• NAFED, NDDB, TRIFED, NCDFI: additional implementing agencies for the 10,000 FPO scheme; SFAC coordinates cluster boundaries and commodity focus with these agencies.

Related schemes

References

• Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortium (sfacindia.com) — SFAC scheme guidelines for the Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for FPCs, Venture Capital Assistance, Project Development Facility, e-NAM SBU and 10,000 FPO scheme cluster allocation and CBBO empanelment.
• e-NAM portal (enam.gov.in) — the electronic National Agriculture Market implemented by SFAC: mandi directory, commodity list, registered-user dashboard, farmer / FPO / trader onboarding and the mobile app.
• Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (agriwelfare.gov.in) — parent department; operational guidelines for the 10,000 FPO scheme and e-NAM, model APLM Act, 2017 and related policy documents.
• National FPO Portal (nafpo.in) — consolidated public directory of registered FPOs across SFAC, NABARD, NCDC and other implementing-agency clusters.
• Press Information Bureau (PIB) — PIB Delhi, 14 April 2016: launch of e-NAM by the Prime Minister; PIB Delhi, 19 February 2020: Cabinet approval of the 10,000 FPO scheme with ₹6,865 crore outlay; periodic PIB releases on SFAC equity-grant releases and e-NAM milestones.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortium (SFAC)?

The Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortium (SFAC) is an autonomous society of the Government of India, registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 in January 1994 by the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation — now the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW) — Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. Its headquarters is at NCUI Auditorium Building, August Kranti Marg, New Delhi. SFAC's mandate is to promote agri-business enterprises and value-chain development for the benefit of small and marginal farmers — through the promotion of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), the operation of matching-equity and credit-guarantee windows for Farmer Producer Companies, the Venture Capital Assistance Scheme for agri-business projects, the Project Development Facility for DPRs and feasibility studies, and as the lead implementing agency for the electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) platform.

How is SFAC different from NCDC and NABARD?

The three are complementary institutions with distinct legal personalities and mandates. NABARD is a statutory apex development bank established under the NABARD Act, 1981, which refinances rural banking, funds RIDF and directly finances FPOs, watershed and rural infrastructure. NCDC is a statutory corporation under the NCDC Act, 1962 that finances cooperative societies across production, processing, marketing, storage and services, and is now under the Ministry of Cooperation. SFAC is neither a statutory body nor a bank — it is a registered society under DA&FW focused specifically on agri-business promotion, FPO handholding, matching-equity grants to Farmer Producer Companies, venture-capital assistance and operating the e-NAM platform. In the 10,000 FPO scheme all three (SFAC, NABARD, NCDC) are lead implementing agencies operating in parallel; a Producer Company typically approaches SFAC for the equity grant and credit guarantee while a cooperative FPO typically approaches NCDC or NABARD.

What is the Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies?

Launched by SFAC in January 2014 under the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, the Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) is SFAC's flagship instrument for capitalising newly formed Producer Companies. Under the Equity Grant window, SFAC provides a matching equity grant equal to the equity contribution made by the shareholder farmers of an eligible FPC, capped at ₹15 lakh per FPC. The grant is credited to individual shareholder accounts pro-rata to member share capital, strengthening the FPC's balance-sheet equity for subsequent bank borrowing. Under the Credit Guarantee window, SFAC provides collateral-free credit guarantee cover on loans up to ₹2 crore extended by eligible lending institutions to FPCs, with the guarantee cover percentage calibrated by ticket size. The scheme's design template was later carried into the 2020 Central Sector Scheme for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs, where SFAC and NABSanrakshan operate parallel credit-guarantee windows.

What is the Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Scheme?

The Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Scheme is SFAC's interest-free loan window for agri-business projects. It provides a soft loan to qualifying agri-entrepreneurs — including FPOs, individual farmers, agri-graduates and self-help groups — to bridge the shortfall between the promoter's contribution and the term loan sanctioned by an eligible bank or financial institution against a bankable DPR. The venture-capital assistance is calibrated as the lower of 26% of the promoter's equity, 40% of the project shortfall or a project-value-linked ceiling, and is disbursed after the term-loan sanction. Repayment is scheduled after a moratorium synchronised with the project's cash-flow ramp-up. VCA is designed to unlock bankable agri-business ideas — cold chain, primary processing, contract farming, dairy value-addition, aromatic-plant processing, seed production, greenhouse cultivation — that would otherwise fail to raise the promoter's contribution.

What is the Project Development Facility (PDF)?

The Project Development Facility (PDF) is SFAC's grant-based support window for the preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs), feasibility studies and bankable business plans for agri-business projects. It is available to Farmer Producer Companies, cooperatives, self-help groups, agri-entrepreneurs, farmer-interest groups and eligible NGOs. The PDF typically funds a professional DPR consultant to structure the technical, financial and marketing dimensions of the proposed project into a document acceptable to a lending bank — the missing first-mile in most agri-business proposals. A good PDF-funded DPR is often the pre-requisite for subsequent VCA support, NABARD or bank term-loan sanction, and downstream convergence with AIF, PMFME or NCDC funding lines.

What is a State SFAC?

State-level SFACs (State Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortia) are autonomous societies constituted by individual state governments on the SFAC model to carry out similar agri-business promotion, FPO handholding, equity-grant and market-linkage functions at the state level. State SFACs typically operate as extended arms of the state agriculture / horticulture / cooperation department, empanel Cluster Based Business Organizations (CBBOs) for the 10,000 FPO scheme, run state-level agri-business incubators, and administer state-funded producer-company equity-grant or interest-subvention windows that stack with the central SFAC windows. Not all states have a functioning State SFAC; states without one route their FPO promotion through NABARD, NCDC or a designated state cooperative federation.

How does an FPO benefit from SFAC?

A Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) — whether newly formed under the 10,000 FPO scheme or an older FPO — can benefit from SFAC in several stacking ways. First, if it is registered as a Farmer Producer Company (Producer Company under the Companies Act, 2013), it becomes eligible for the SFAC matching Equity Grant up to ₹15 lakh, which credits pro-rata to shareholder accounts and strengthens the FPC's equity base. Second, the FPO can access collateral-free bank loans up to ₹2 crore under the SFAC Credit Guarantee window (or the parallel NABSanrakshan CGFFPO window). Third, the FPO can apply for a PDF-funded DPR and, on that basis, obtain VCA soft-loan support to bridge the promoter-contribution shortfall on a bankable agri-business project. Fourth, SFAC is the lead implementing agency for e-NAM, so FPO-side onboarding onto e-NAM's FPO / lot-trading-from-premises module happens through SFAC-empanelled CBBOs. Fifth, SFAC-empanelled CBBOs provide the five-year handholding under the 10,000 FPO scheme for SFAC-cluster FPOs.

How does e-NAM link to SFAC?

e-NAM (electronic National Agriculture Market) — the pan-India online trading portal that networks APMC mandis — was launched by the Prime Minister on 14 April 2016 and its lead implementing agency is SFAC on behalf of the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW). SFAC operates the e-NAM Strategic Business Unit, runs the technical delivery and integration with state APMCs, manages farmer / FPO / trader / commission-agent onboarding, oversees the mandi assaying-lab standardisation, and coordinates with WDRA on eNWR-based warehouse trading. As per enam.gov.in and PIB releases, e-NAM today integrates more than 1,389 mandis across 23 states and 4 Union Territories, with over 1.78 crore farmers, roughly 2.5 lakh traders on the unified e-NAM licence, about 2,600 FPOs onboarded and more than 220 notified commodities. The Platform of Platforms (PoP) initiative — integrating approved private agri-market platforms with e-NAM — is also delivered under SFAC's execution.

SFAC scheme parameters — the ₹15 lakh matching equity grant per FPC, the ₹2 crore credit-guarantee cover, the interest-free VCA sizing, the PDF eligibility criteria and the 10,000 FPO cluster allocation — summarise publicly available material on sfacindia.com, the DA&FW guidelines on agriwelfare.gov.in and PIB releases. e-NAM mandi and user counts evolve as new APMCs join; readers should refer to enam.gov.in for the latest figures. Scheme thresholds and cover percentages are periodically revised — prospective applicants should verify current terms with SFAC before applying.